City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of
this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and
fix it.

Yet the VDT has
spent the last week blaming the city,
and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of
its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum
that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

If we get a hurricane this year, we could easily have another "100 year"
flood this year.
Or maybe not even a hurricane.
That 700 year flood in 2009 did not come from a 700 year rain,
nor did the flood last week.
We're still way behind our formerly normal rainfall.
Our local watersheds have been so damaged by clearcutting,
invasive species, and development without adequate regard for
hydrology that it doesn't take much rain to cause a serious flood.
Like Gabe Fisher said about the manhole in his back yard,
"Sometimes all it takes is a heavy rain".

Perhaps all the local leaders could start paying attention to
bigger pictures of local water issues, which extend
far upstream and downstream of Valdosta.